I never had to put myself in somebody else's shoes.

You're not doing the scene exactly the way it is in the book [The Hunger Games], but the intention of the scene is there.

[On the racial backlash about Hunger Games casting]: "People should have ignored the five racist idiots.

I'm an ardent fan. All I really had to do was put myself in my own shoes.

I felt that there were so many things that could go wrong, in adapting The Hunger Games , and I had this fierce desire to protect this book that she had written. At that time, I read the second book, in manuscript form, and so I saw where she was going with the series. I was able to convince Suzanne [Collins] to trust me with the books.

Suzanne [Collins] was very involved in the development of the script. She wrote the first draft. She was very involved with Billy Ray, when he wrote his draft.

If the movie [The Hunger Games] were stylized violence that was pretty and fun and cool, which is great when you go see 300 or The Matrix, it would just be out of sync with the fact that they're kids.